Can Idaho manage public lands better than the feds?

Chris Haunold shakes his head as he watches the Legislature push for a bill demanding that the U.S. government transfer ownership of the land it controls to the state. The owner of Idaho Mountain Touring in Boise is a member of the Idaho Outdoor Business Council. He said "it's crazy" hearing lawmakers talk about how they think the state will manage the land better. "They don't see the big picture," Haunold said. The big picture, from his standpoint, is not that logging and grazing are bad, but that Idaho's recreation industry, now a potent economic force, is tied directly to the state's bounty of public lands. Supporters of House Concurrent Resolution 22 say they don't intend to sell off the federal land, but to manage it more efficiently. A hearing is scheduled at the Capitol for Monday at 9 a.m. before the House State Affairs Committee. The resolution's premise is that the federal government broke its promise to the states to dispose of all its lands and give the states 5 percent of the revenue. Most legal scholars agree that the federal government had the right to change its mind, but there is a minority view that the states' claim may be held as constitutional. That view passed the Utah Legislature last year, catching the interest of lawmakers in Arizona, Wyoming and New Mexico. Idaho's bill, patterned after Utah's law, follows the federal disposal idea, meaning the state would keep 5 percent of the proceeds for any of the land it sells and turn 95 percent over to the U.S. government. "The federal government never gave us the lands we were entitled to," said Iona Republican Rep. Tom Loertscher, chairman of the House State Affairs Committee...more